The GQ Guide To Why Breaking Bad is the best show on TV

If you still haven't seen it yet, stop everything and start now

The wait is nearly over. On 12 August, Breaking Bad will return to our screens (via Netflix) for its final eight episodes. Over five series, Vince Gilligan's peerless meth-cooking drama has seen Bryan Cranston's Walter White evolve from hapless, chemistry-teaching cancer patient to murderous, hat-loving drug lord Heisenberg. It has also transformed into the best TV series around. (For those who still inexplicably haven't seen it yet, stop everything and start now.)

Warning: major series 1-5 spoilers follow, yo.

Because Walter White is TV's greatest anti-hero The television anti-hero is nothing new – see Don Draper or Tony Soprano – but none has ever been so eminently relatable as Walter White. From his ridiculous introduction as a trouserless, helplessly moustachioed chemistry with a handicapped son diagnosed with terminal cancer, we're on Walt's side. And it's a testament both to Cranston's Emmy-winning performance, and our own inner darkness, that we're still on his side as the hapless Walt descends into darkness. At what point do we realise Walt is the bad guy? When he's poisoned a child, let his partner's young girlfriend choke to death on her own vomit, or ordered the prison murders of his former rival's employees?

There in lies Vince Gilligan's greatest achievement: it isn't a show about a cancer-suffering chemistry teacher. It's a show about our own skewed lines of morality – what's legal, what's right, and what isn't – and how we navigate them. As Walt declares early in season one: "chemistry is the study of matter. But I prefer to see it as the study of change… it is growth, then decay, then transformation."

It cemented the age of binge-watching Binge-watching has been around since box-sets and 24-hour marathons, but Breaking Bad only being available in the UK via DVD or Netflix has meant that the only way to watch it is in enormous, multi-episode gulps. Trust us, it will briefly decimate your social life and leave you as a sunlight-starved wreck because once you get your first hit of the blue, you just can't stop.

It has the best deaths on TV For a show about drug dealing, Breaking Bad is astonishingly violent. Here's to all the amazing demises that have befallen Walt's enemies, including being crushed by a cash machine, choked with a bike lock, poisoned with phosphine gas, exploded by suicide-bomb-wheelchair and – everyone's favourite – the Danny-Trejo's-decapitated-head-on-a-tortoise bomb.

The soundtrack is phenomenal For a show known for its performances and stark visual style, Breaking Bad's music is often overlooked. From Rodrigo Y Gabriela's "Tamacun" to Alexander Ebert's "Truth", the soundtrack is always perfectly poised – and the season five cooking montage set to Tommy James & The Shondell's "Crystal Blue Persuasion" is utter televisual perfection.

The science is surprisingly accurate From the unforgettable opening sequence – those numbers spell out the chemical formula for Methamphetamine – to Walt's chemistry lessons, everything in the show is written by consulting real scientists, so that (blue meth aside) it's as accurate as possible. As Jesse would say, "Yeah, science!"

You'll never see it coming… From the moment in series one when moment a bathtub containing an acid-soaked corpse crashes through the ceiling, washing a crimson smoothie of human viscera across Jesse's hallway, to Walt's astonishing hit-and-run scene in "Half Measures", no show will leave you literally jumping on the sofa in surprise so often.

…even though there was plenty of signs While the use of foreshadowing is rife in modern TV (see the many signs of Lane's hanging inMad Men) Vince Gilligan's use of the technique is both uniquely thorough and astonishingly subtle. The burnt bear missing an eye foretelling Gus Fring's demise, or a young Salamanca sitting in a chair made of wheels. In fact, we've probably already been shown how it's going to end but haven't even noticed it yet.

Because even the supporting characters are fully fleshed out While it might lack the sprawling casts of a show like The Wire or Mad Men, Breaking Badmakes up for it with a small but perfectly formed group, each of whom we see transforming as Walt descends into Heisenberg. There's Skylar's masterful progression from wronged to cheating wife and subsequently money mule, to Hank's growth from cantankerous cop to obsessed detective, to Marie's shoplifting, the supporting cast are just as good as Walt. So much so that Bob Odenkirk's gloriously shady lawyer Saul Goodman is even getting his own spin-off series.

But Jesse is the greatest, yo "Yeah, b*tch!" Not since Malcolm Tucker has TV had a character so loved for his swear words. But more than that, Aaron Paul's Jesse has evolved from the loveable addict to Breaking Bad'smoral compass. He is also much more than a lackey (after all, as Gale learned, Walt isn't the one who knocks – Jesse is). If anyone can stop Walt's descent into darkness, he can.

Because the series five cliff-hanger is unbearable Pacing is one of Vince Gilligan's greatest tools – he'll spend entire episodes exploring monotony of evil via a fly in the meth lab or spend minutes on silent breakfast scenes – so when the twists happen (and they happen often) it comes as even more of a shock. But with the mid-season finale of series five, which saw Hank finally realise Walt's secret while sat on the toilet, while teasing us with a glimpse of future-Walt and his machine gun, he has executed a masterwork in delayed gratification. Thank god we only have to wait a few more days.

It's full of unexpected references Leave the Dante to Don Draper. While Breaking Bad is littered with allusions and pop-culture references, they're often to off-the-wall places: Vince Gilligan's former show The X-Files, Walt Whitman, or the work of Quentin Tarantino. Perhaps even better than the Whitman allusion – for what is Walt, than Hank's uncatchable white whale – is the teaser for the upcoming finale, set to Shelley's epic poem of hubris and fallen empires: "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair."

Everyone has their theory on the ending If you're a Breaking Bad fan, you probably have a few ideas on how it will all end in a few episodes time. Everyone has their own theory, from Nicolas Winding Refn ("Walter White gotta go down!") to Aaron Paul ("It's going to be very violent") and Bryan Cranston ("However Vince Gilligan wants it to end") themselves. As for us, we have our own theories…